Adventures in food, wine, and dinner parties

Duck

It’s no secret that Dan is a little obsessed with duck. Sous vide, roasted, seared, confited, whatever–if it’s made of duck, he’s crazy for it. So I wasn’t terribly surprised when he floated the idea of doing a January dinner centered on ducks and geese. I’d never cooked either one, and I was excited to learn.

The next morning at my regular coffee shop, the guy behind the counter listened as I relayed the story of our dead-end goose-hunt. “Oh yeah,” he nodded. “I just did a whole roast goose for Christmas dinner. Drewes Brothers in Noe Valley can hook you up.”

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE living in a city where small talk with your barista turns out to be the most effective method for sourcing whole animals?

Anyways, once we had our birds in hand (one whole goose plus 8 duck breasts, 12 duck legs, 10 pounds of duck fat, 10 pounds of duck carcasses, two pounds of duck livers, and four pounds of duck tongues), we got to work. I made three enormous pots of duck stock. Dan slow-cooked duck and goose leg confit overnight in the oven, saturating the air with a rich meaty perfume. We researched techniques for making liver mousse and sausage (both incredibly easy, as it turns out). We ate duck and goose whenever we found it on restaurant menus. We fried a lot of stuff.

And somewhere along the line, a funny thing happened. I caught a little bit of Dan’s duck fever. Remember how Homer Simpson felt when he found out that pork chops and ham and bacon all came from the same delicious, magical animal? That was me with the ducks. And I hope that’s how our guests felt too when we presented this menu.

We’re not completely set on our pairings yet… stay tuned for updates on those. And if you’d like to join our mailing list for updates on future dinners, go ahead and email us or leave a comment. Cheers!